At Least Droopy Wasn’t There
by Manchester
Summary: Oz always considered his decision to come to Sunnydale a few months earlier than planned the best he’d ever made in his entire life, especially since his new girlfriend had an interesting suggestion for their Halloween costumes....


On Halloween night, in his soldier fatigues, Xander shifted impatiently at the bottom of the staircase at the Summers house. Turning to Buffy at his side, with the girl fussing with her ornate noblewoman's gown, the young man complained, "Aren't they ever gonna be finished? What'd they decide to dress up anyway? Wils wouldn't tell me."

The Slayer shrugged. "No idea. They went off to that new costume store together, and when they showed up here to change, they just had packages in their arms." Shooting a look of mischief at her friend, Buffy casually said, "At least they didn't change together--"

"ACK!" spluttered Xander, pointing a disgusted finger at Buffy and snapping out, "Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts!"

"Oh, come on! I thought you liked Oz," snickered Buffy, tossing back her brown wig, her new hair sweeping her bare shoulders.

Xander reluctantly smiled, and admitted, "Yeah, he's cool, and it's great having another guy in the Scoobies that I can talk to. Without needing to discuss hair products, unlike a certain Deadboy….," trailed off Xander, getting in his own hit.

Buffy stuck out her tongue at the sniggering boy dressed up as a soldier, a toy rifle casually held over his shoulder. In the middle of her rude gesture, her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open, with her tongue still sticking out. Xander thoughtfully reached over and pushed her tongue back in with the tip of his index finger, which he then wiped on the leg of his fatigue pants, before looking at where Buffy was staring.

Now, it was Xander's turn for his mouth to fall open.

Descending the staircase was a young male the same age as Xander, dressed in a formal tuxedo outfit.

Uncertainly, Buffy asked, "Oz? Is that you?" That question was justified, considering that presumed individual was also wearing a full facemask of a fierce cartoon wolf.

As the young man stopped on the last step of the stairway, he looked Xander in the face, with the facemask dipping once in acknowledgement, and the pair at the bottom of the stairs saw a flicker of motion through the left eyehole, as he clearly winked at them both.

Bewildered, Xander stared at his new friend, and inquired, "Uh, Oz, why are you dressed up as Disney's Big Bad Wolf? And, I mean, really dressed up. I don't remember ever seeing him like that, all spiffy."

A minimal headshake was made by the wolf man, who then tilted his head in thought, as if he were to explain. However, there was no need for this, as both Buffy's and Xander's attention was once more caught, as they now stared in incredulity at Willow Rosenberg carefully coming down the stairs.

That young girl was looking straight ahead, as if to avoid catching anyone's eye, while she showed a deep blush that covered her entire face and further, from up to her newly put-up auburn hair, and down to her cleavage. That last was readily evident, as Willow was now wearing some kind of white skin-tight dancer's outfit covering only her torso. Backless, and swooping from her chest to the top of her legs, with that latter part of her body only minimally covered by a scrap of a skirt, the leotard was nearly as white as the girls' own alabaster skin.

Glancing at Xander out of the corner of her eye, it was now Buffy's turn to reach out and shove up the chin of the boy's gaping mouth. Not that it helped, as Xander promptly again stared slack-jawed at what his yellow-crayon friend had revealed as possessing a totally hot bod.

Stopping besides Oz on the stairs, Willow tugged at her white elbow-length gloves, and shifted on her dancer's shoes that matched the color of her gloves, until the silence among all there finally drove her to ask, "So, uh, what do you think?"

Giving Oz the stink-eye, Xander growled, "I think I better set up wolf-traps around your house, Wils!"

Willow giggled delightedly, and finally stopped blushing, as she reproved her fellow Sunnydale native. "Xan, knock it off! I'm the one who suggested this!"

This got Willow an admiring look from Buffy, who did have a question, "Uh, Willow, I thought you were going as a themed couple. Who exactly are you supposed to be, anyway?"

Before Willow (or possibly Oz) could answer, Xander groaned out the answer, "She's the dancer from the Tex Avery cartoon 'Red Hot Riding Hood', and he's the wolf that….didn't act like Oz at all, come to think of it!" By the time the teenager had finished his sentence, Xander was looking a bit more cheerful.

Even when Oz softly snorted his dissent.

Buffy, on the other hand, still looked a little uncomprehending. Glancing at the wall clock, she shrugged, and said, "Well, you can tell me about it on our way. Come on, it's time for us to get to school to meet the trick-or-treaters Snyder assigned us to escort tonight."

The others all glowered at this (even Oz behind his mask), until Xander brightly suggested, "Hey, Wils, maybe your outfit will give the troll an actual heart attack!"

Now it was Willow's turn to stick out her tongue at her friend.

* * *

Several hours later, the doors to the Sunnydale High school library burst open, startling Rupert Giles, who'd been peacefully reading 'Great Expectations.' His Sunnydale reflexes made him immediately reach under his desk to draw the sword hidden there, before even looking at where Willow Rosenberg was rushing towards him, revealing a panicked look on her face and wearing….

And wearing….

By the time his brain's mental circuits had re-set themselves into a more logical explanation of 'typical California teenage behavior, possibly', Willow had stopped in front of the desk, leaned over it to rest the palms of her hands on top of this piece of furniture, and started yelling into Giles' face.

"Giles! Somehow we all turned into our costumes tonight! I think it has something to do with that new costume shop in town, run by somebody named--"

"Yes, yes, Willow," soothingly said Giles, who was now determinedly staring at the redhead's hairline. "Ah, could you please adjust your….attire?"

Looking down, Willow yelped, and tugged up her leotard. Shooting another beseeching glance at Giles, who was still resolutely studying her hairstyle, the girl opened her mouth in another try, only to be rudely interrupted.

With a tremendous crash!, the library doors were again slammed open, and in the doorway, a being stood there, his entire body quivering in eagerness. His formal black tuxedo outfit was sleek and shiny, covering the body of an human male, while showing at the top of his torso, the head of an actual, crazed wolf was frantically looking around, searching for….there!

Staring right at Willow, the wolf's eyes now incredibly shot out of his eye-sockets and expanded to flat disks the size of garbage can lids. His lower jaw dropped, not the inch or so usual for this action, but all the way to the floor, where it bounced a few times before coming to a rest. Also dropping from the wolf's mouth was some sort of strange, pinkish wheel, that as it too landed on the floor, it rolled away from the wolf, unfurling along the way into a pink rope thirty-feet long all the way to the side of Giles' desk.

As the man numbly leaned over to examine this, the wheel completely unrolled, exposing the tip of something's….tongue? Giles didn't have very long to examine this, as the tongue promptly rolled back up into a wheel again, returning to the wolf with a few bounces along the way, slamming back into his mouth and causing his lower jaw to shoot up again to slam shut with so much force that the wolf actually bounced from the floor almost all the way to the ceiling.

Coming down again, seemingly unharmed by all his bodily changes, the wolf gave a maniac grin, exposing numerous sharp fangs, enthusiastically stomped his right foot onto the floor a few times, and lifting his head, howled loudly for several moments. Then, the wolf brought his head down again, directed a demented look at Willow, who'd now turned around at Giles' desk, and rushed forward at the girl.

"Willow, get behind me!" shouted Giles, rising from his desk and holding his sword ready, looking over the girl's shoulder (which was bare all the way down her back to where he could see dimples….. Concentrate, man!) at the oncoming wolf.

"Relax, Giles," casually said Willow. "I got this."

As a disbelieving librarian watched, the wolf ran right at the redhead, who herself waited until the very last moment, before making a complex gesture with her arms, that incredibly managed to produce, from an outfit that surely couldn't conceal a paper clip, something that was certainly much larger than that.

In her hands, Willow now easily held a massive mallet, the head of which was bigger than a trash can, and she promptly used it on the advancing, lip-smacking wolf. Clobbering him right on top of his skull.

WHAM!

The entire library shook to this sound effect.

Giles dazedly watched as a bent-over Willow now lifted up her mallet resting just a few feet off the floor, revealing along the way an absolutely tight bum just barely covered by her leotard (Queen Elizabeth II! Queen Victoria! Queen with Freddie Mercury!).

Standing there in the middle of the library, after being walloped, were two wolf feet in their patent leather shoes supporting the remainder of the wolf that had been squashed down to just being a foot tall. Grunting sounds came from somewhere in this compressed lupine creature, until it began to inflate and expand, until with an audible pop!, the wolf regained its form, standing there and smiling at Willow and Giles.

Tossing away her mallet, Willow ran to the main library table, darting around it, while promptly being chased after by the wolf. "Giles!" she shouted, "I have to tell you about the costume shop! The owner is-- WHOOP!" The wolf had almost managed to grab Willow's skirt that was covering such a toned arse (That's it! Cold showers for you the rest of this month!), until the girl found from somewhere in her new abilities the capability for her to increase her speed so much that she turned into an actual white streak, lapping the wolf numerous times.

Ol' wolfie wasn't discouraged, no siree. Grinning happily, the wolf also increased his speed, to turn into a black streak, that continued to chase the white streak around the table in a too-fast-to-be-seen blur.

Rupert Giles just stared at this for a few moments, and then he carefully placed his sword on his desk, resumed his seat, took off his glasses, pulled out his handkerchief, and steadily started to polish the lenses. Finally, the man spoke the words he'd never thought he'd say in his whole life.

"I should have become a bloody barrister."


End file.
